The Rise of Wifi Music Festival Connectivity

In this day and age, it doesn’t matter where you are, it seems like you can always get connected to a WiFi network: a coffee shop, a hospital lobby, or even on flights. There are few places left where there is no access to WiFi.

That being said, there is one area where access to WiFi network seems to be lacking: festivals, and organizers are just now starting to put in place WiFi networks at their events to deliver a better experience. The way people enjoy and engage with festivals has certainly changed over the years: now people love sharing and flaunting their every move, and every moment of the festival to their family, friends, and followers.

The event industry wants to better connect with their audience, and providing WiFi networks is one approach that will allow them to do so.

Music festivals worldwide generated well over 4.1 billion US dollars last year, but as the event industry becomes more saturated with new events and festivals, it has become much harder to grasp the attention of people. Organizers must therefore identify ways to beat the competition and give participants the best possible experience. WiFi is one competitive edge that many organizers are not taking advantage of.

Today, technology has taken a major place in our lives, and adding something as simple as WiFi can make a huge difference to your tickets sales. Connectivity is invaluable to the young tech-savvy generation, and they feel a sense of belonging and safety wherever they have the peace of mind that they can stay connected to their social media profiles.

How are WiFi structures reliably implemented?

Since the majority of festivals and events take place in remote locations, setting up a reliable WiFi network is no easy task. However, there are many companies that specialize in this area, and they have established different ways to keep festival-goers and any attendees connected to the internet.

For the most part, these companies — like ours — will create several different hotspots to mitigate the size of the venue. As we mentioned earlier, the size of festivals and events vary a lot, so being able to provide many different WiFi hotspots can solve this issue. When we take a look at past festival WiFi hotspot examples, one of the most notable hotspots was at Glastonbury in 2014.

The “WiFi cows”, allowed attendees to connect with 4G WiFi hotspots, and get online. The service provider, EE, also enabled those present to take advantage of contactless payments at the festival’s 25 bars. The organizers thought of ways to give more value to the festival, and they came up with something that really paid off. As we move forward in the digital age, this type of service will become increasingly common and organizers will have to think of more ways on top of WiFi services to give value to their events.

Is WiFi at a festival beneficial?

Providing WiFi is the logical step forward if you are looking to attract more people to your festival or event. Festival-goers are very enthusiastic and motivated to share their experience on social media, and by providing these people with WiFi, you would be answering the need of thousands of people. Of course, many people say that WiFi can damage the overall festival experience at these events, but that is not necessarily true.

The main advantage: increased visibility. Picture this: 50,000 people attending your event, and each individual constantly posting and sharing their moments across multiple social media platforms.

Talk about a great way to get coverage? Installing WiFi hotspots will help you achieve that goal. When each of those 50,000 individuals making posts about their time at your festival, they are collectively advertising your event to their wider social circles.